If we do end up with a by-election in this seat following Mike Amesbury’s guilty plea I would expect a Labour hold but on a very low turnout then it is possible we get a surprise but a potential by election could cause problems for Labour, the Tories, and Reform. If the Tories finish a fair distance behind Reform that puts pressure on Kemi Badenoch’s leadership because she cannot stop the leakage to Reform. I do think the the Tories…
I suspect this is why Tory attacks on Labour’s stint in government so far aren’t really having impact. TSE
“Nothing in life became him, like the leaving of it.” Substitute “job” for “life” and it is what those leaving an important role should aim for. Not so Helen Pitcher, the now ex-Head of the CCRC whose self-pitying interview about being made a scapegoat for the CCRC’s failures in the Andy Malkinson case can be read here. A summary of the Malkinson case: After publication of the report and in response to the Justice Minister’s view that she needed to…
Somebody made the observation to me last night that the 75% of the polls conducted wholly in 2025 have Reform ahead of the Tories, admittedly this from admittedly small sample size. My friend observed to me that this year opinion polls will shape the narrative a lot with the likely postponement of so many local elections this year. If this trend becomes solidified then I think it puts Kemi Badenoch under pressure to turn things around, the narrative the Tories…
TSE
The Critic have published an article focusing on what they see as Kemi Badenoch’s Achilles’ heel “Kemi, unfortunately, has bought into her own mythology. Her self-image far outstrips her actual abilities, a dangerous delusion that has led her to miscalculate time and again. This overinflated sense of self is perhaps best captured by her childhood friend Taiwo Togun, who said Kemi’s mindset is: “I’m probably the best thing in the room, you just don’t realise it, and you will realise…
TSE
In her weekend interview with the FT Nicola Sturgeon covered a wide range of topics but from a betting perspective this is the key quote. The day after the UK’s 2016 Brexit vote, [Sturgeon] said a second independence referendum was “highly likely”. Now it’s “off the radar . . . But in younger age groups, support for independence is 60, 65, 70 per cent. They’re not changing their minds as they get older. The demographics are very firmly in one…